TobyMac stays fresh into his 50s and talks race relations in latest album

30 years ago — with his former band DC Talk — TobyMac helped bring early hip-hop to the gospel airwaves. A few years later, they gave Christian kids a '90s alt-rock anthem with "Jesus Freak."

Today, at age 53, TobyMac (a.k.a. Kevin McKeehan) remains one of the most "contemporary" stars in contemporary Christian music.

That remarkable streak continues on his eighth solo album, "The Elements," which hit No. 2 on the iTunes overall album chart this past week.

Its electronic arena rock sounds right in step with the millennials in Twenty One Pilots or Imagine Dragons. McKeehan gives as much credit as possible to his collaborators — he even brought producers out on the road with him to craft "Elements" tracks. He also says he hasn't "grown cold or jaded to how important a song can be."

"I call it 'the river of music,' because it's moving all the time," McKeehan says. "At some time, people just choose to get off at the bank ... I've just continued to move along with that river (laughs)."

Still, many songs on "The Elements" came from McKeehan feeling like forces were pushing against him, and "all of the division" he's witnessed in recent years.

"We have to set our sights every day to be the person we want to be in this world," he says. "It feels like most things are telling us to look out for ourselves, when I want to be someone that looks out for others."

TobyMac(Photo: Submitted)

He's perhaps most overt in the song "Starts With Me," which addresses race relations in the United States. He sings about "a system that has lost our trust," and the times "when justice just won't come around."

"My world is very diverse," McKeehan says. "From my family to my band, to the schools my kids go to, we purposely go out of our way to make sure that we're living a life of diversity. And I think that because of that, you become aware, and sensitive to what's going on in society. I think that the biggest thing is there's a lot of pain. If we look into our history, which I've been willing to do, I see that many things were taught to me, handed down to me, that were just wrong concerning race relations.

"All I'm asking is we wake up and open our eyes, and be a little more sensitive and a little more aware... It has to start with each individual. Individual change will lead to societal change."

Shifts in McKeehan's personal life also inspired the songs, like "Scars," which came from him watching his oldest son leave home.

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"He moved to L.A. and he's making music, and he's doing his thing. But to watch him go through that, and watch him get bruised, it's not easy. So that's one of the ways life has changed. In that song, I just want him to know he's not alone."

And that spirit goes well beyond "Scars." McKeehan says he always has others in mind when he's writing a song — even if he doesn't know who they are.

"I still believe a song can move somebody's heart. And I think that's important. It's easy when you've been doing it a long time to grow cold to that. But I haven't. Every song I write, I still think, 'This is for someone out there.' That's the way I go about it."